An Egyptian court banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets to be
seized yesterday, escalating the crackdown on the Islamist movement of
Mohamed Morsi, the ousted President .

The ruling outlawed the Brotherhood and its political wing, effectively
closing the door on its re-entry into politics.

Critics warned that shutting it out of power only two years after the lifting
of a decades-long ban would encourage its supporters to turn to violence.

Most controversially, the verdict provides a legal basis for an even wider
crackdown against the Brotherhood’s network of ostensibly non-political
entities, such as schools, hospitals and welfare groups,

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Never has the Muslim Brotherhood been dealt a more devastating blow than the one delivered yesterday. In one ruling, the court not only outlawed the world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movement but any organisation or activities associated with it, political or otherwise.

The ruling strikes at the very heart of the Brotherhood’s legitimacy and the basis of its popular support: its vast network of schools, hospitals and social services catering to millions of poor Egyptians untended by the State.

The Brotherhood was officially banned for most of its 80-year history until the fall of Hosni Mubarak brought it out of the shadows and into mainstream politics. Even under Mr Mubarak, however, its social programmes and the organisational strength that underpinned it continued to operate.

The grassroots support that those programmes cultivated proved critically helpful to its entry into politics in the post-Mubarak era. Newly formed parties struggled to compete with the Brotherhood’s freshly launched political wing, which ultimately won the presidency.

More than 2,000 members have been imprisoned , including the top political leadership, and hundreds killed in the crackdown that followed President Morsi’s overthrow by the military in July. Critics warned that shutting the Brotherhood out of power would encourage its followers to turn to violence and risk igniting a devastating insurgency.

Yesterday’s ruling provides a legal basis for an even wider crackdown, potentially criminalising all of the Brotherhood’s one million members, including teachers and doctors.

Egypt’s rulers may be relying on the damage that Mr Morsi’s disastrous year in office did to the Brotherhood’s popularity to mitigate the backlash. The formal outlawing may be the moment when the Brotherhood’s younger discontents make their final break from the old organisation and launch their own Islamist movement.

However, with no room in the new order for religious parties, the avenues for peaceful opposition look limited.